1. Field
The present invention relates to methods of presenting and playing games and gaming machines configured to present games.
2. Related Art
Consumer loyalty programs are well known. A company may set up a loyalty program whereby a consumer may subscribe to the loyalty program to achieve points or other rewards for doing business with the company. In turn, the company is able to track the buying habits of the consumer in order to provide better services or products according to the consumer's needs.
Similar loyalty programs are also utilized in the gaming industry. For example, a casino or a group of affiliated casinos may have a player tracking program that tracks the activities of players at a casino, such as their game play activities. The casino may utilize the player tracking system to provide rewards and/or incentives to the players to entice them to visit the casino for achieving predetermined requirements relating to gaming activities.
Such loyalty programs as described above generally require complicated machine hardware to be installed at each point of sale system so that the point of sale system can track purchases from the consumers. Further, each point of sale system is wired to central loyalty server that keeps tracks of loyalty accounts for the consumers. Such systems thus require substantial investment on the part of the business to implant.
In the context of gaming, such loyalty programs require each gaming device to include complicated hardware to implement the player tracking system. Further, each gaming machine is required to be wired to a central player tracking server that must be maintained by the casino or group of casinos.
While player tracking systems are beneficial for the casino that maintains the system, other entities that would benefit from such a system are unable to do so. For example, typical loyalty programs operated by a casino or group of affiliated casinos are not capable of providing a game manufacturer player tracking data analytics on the game play of their machines across a plurality of casino properties. Thus, a new player tracking system and loyalty program overcoming the above drawbacks is desired.